Piranha, Piranha (1972)

Piranha

Cast:

William "Conan's Dad who was pro-CROM!!!" Smith is Caribe
Peter Brown is Jim Pendrake
Ahna Capri is Terry
Tom Simcox is Art Greene
John Villegas is Juan

What the DVD says:

Two wildlife photographers are traveling through the Amazon River basin on their latest assignment. While trying to capture the wildlife of the area on film, our photographers cross paths with a agame hunter, who is stalking the animals for another reason. Looking to eliminate the witnesses to his illegal activities, the hunter decides to hunt the photographers in order to silence them.

Plot:

Let the stock films of monkeys, snakes, and birds ensue in the rain forest as they're caught by wild-animal gamers.

At the airport, Jim Pendrake, a guide, greetshis newest clients: Art and Terry, photographers. They get stocked for their jungle trip and head off on the biking montage. The 1970s has to have some bit where Terry, the pretty photographer be scared and rescued by the guide. Let more of the wildlife and bikin' montage ensue before finally being stopped for the night

At a bar, they meet Caribe, a big game hunter. Jim and Caribe have to have a motorcycle race where Caribe wins.

Caribe agrees to take them to the diamond district to see diamonds weighed, cut, etc...

Later, Caribe catches Terry in the river. Apparently, everyone but her knew about all the electric eels and piranhas in the water.

They head on to Caribe's house. Later, Caribe goes on a hunt and catches Terry.

Art and Jim are away and decide to find Terry and get away. After, they find her. Art wants to start a primal rage to find Caribe. However, the hunter stabs Art and tosses his body in the river.

Jim goes to find Art which doesn't go well. Jim and Terry hotwire a jeep to escape Caribe who is hunting after them and burns down the nearest village.

In too dark to see, Jim and Caribe are going presumably mano and mano. At day. Caribe is taking Terry along when Jim jumps him. Caribe is about to finish him off when Terry grabs the nearest gun and shoots hunter to become piranha-chow...

What I say:

The 1970s had plenty of killer animal movies from ants and bees to piranhas. The last few years have seen the return of killer animals typically giant mutant snakes or prehistoric super-fish if the Sci-Fiffy originals have any grasps of reality. Well, the return of the piranha movies has been a B-fish sub-genre in it's own scaly return...

This movie is falsely advertised. Shouldn't a movie with the word "Piranha" have piranhas throughout it sooner than an hour into the movie? Is it too much to ask for a movie titled Piranha, Piranha to not have some killer fish with razor teeth in it? Not asking for scientific exactness. At least Piranha or Piranha 2: the Spawning had some type of killer fish with razor teeth. However, Piranha, Piranha is more trying to somehow become some sort of hunter with a Most Dangerous Game vibe. It was probably more just a jungle adventure movie that got "piranha" tossed around in the story a couple of times and was thought to be enough of a justification than anything else.

Occasionally, we run across one of those actors that have earned the highly respected "Hey, it's that guy" award like Bruce Campbell. Well, this movie does have a few in it including William Smith. Who's he? Most of my ten of fans would ask if they talk to the site. From Conan the Barbarian's dad, Hell Comes to Frogtown, Maniac Cop, and an impressive list of guest stars in TV shows over the decades...

I think in over the years of SideOrderofNinjas it has been decyphered that one of the most annoying movie aspects is the dreaded "too dark to see" scenes in many B-movies. Expecting perfect cinematography shouldn't be from anyone who has watched Evil Dead 2 numerous times including on their VHS copies. A movie's battle scene should at least be able to tell what is going on. With visual clarity worse than a myopic blindfolded guy in a cave, I've got to say it's "too dark to see."

Quotable Dialogue
"I've been assigned to be your official Tarzan."
"Road show horrible..."
"A motorcycle, v-room, v-room, v-room..."
Morals of the Story
All photographers are pacifists.
Veneuvula is full of rattlesnakes.
Motorcycles and alligatotors are common combination.
Maniacal laughing is always intimidating.